African Union Runs Critical Eye Over International Criminal Court

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — The International Criminal Court (ICC) has become a "political instrument," Ethiopia's foreign minister said on Friday, opening a meeting at which Africa will review its ties with the Hague-based war crimes tribunal.

Friday's ministerial meeting of the African Union (AU) and a summit on Saturday were called to cast a critical eye over the relationship following ICC cases against Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy, William Ruto.

Both deny charges that they organized a killing spree after Kenya's disputed 2007 election.

Last month, an AU official said the organization would consider a mass withdrawal by the continent's 34 signatories to the court's Rome Statute, though ministers and others have since played down talk of such action.

Frustration at the ICC has been growing in Africa because the court has only ever convicted one man, an African warlord, and all others its has charged are also Africans.

Rights groups have urged the continent not to quit, saying such a move would reverse efforts to end a culture of impunity they say has prevailed in African politics.

'CONDESCENDING'

The 54-member AU, headquartered in Addis Ababa, has backed a Kenyan call for the Kenyan trials to be moved closer to home and appealed to the U.N. Security Council to defer the two cases, both until now without success.

"We should not allow the ICC to continue to treat Africa and Africans in a condescending manner," Ethiopian Foreign Minister Tedros Adhanom told the opening meeting of foreign ministers, adding he expected the AU to come up with recommendations.

"Far from promoting justice and reconciliation, and contributing to the advancement of peace and stability in our continent, the court has transformed itself into a political instrument targeting Africa and Africans."

The ministers then moved into a closed session.

London-based rights group Amnesty International urged African nations not to withdraw cooperation with the court.

"Such a resolution would serve no purpose except to shield from justice, and to give succor to, people suspected of committing some of the worst crimes known to humanity," Amnesty's deputy director of law and policy, Tawanda Hondora, said in a statement on Thursday.

Lawyers for Kenyatta asked on Thursday for his trial on charges of crimes against humanity to be abandoned, saying defense witnesses had been intimidated.

Ruto went on trial in The Hague last month and Kenyatta's trial is due to start on November 12.

Hailemariam Desalegn, Ethiopia's prime minister, whose country is not a court signatory, told Reuters this week the ICC was showing "double standards".

Asked if the AU meeting would call for a mass walkout, he said: "That is up to those members of the ICC who have signed the Rome Statute. But as the African Union, we can only voice out the reality on the ground."

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has become a "political instrument," Ethiopia's foreign minister said on Friday, opening a meeting at which Africa will review its ties with the Hague-based war crimes tribunal.